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Bloggers' Rights

Bloggers' Rights

One of EFF's goals is to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger to let you know you have rights and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected. To that end we have created the Legal Guide for Bloggers a collection of blogger-specific FAQs addressing everything from fair use to defamation law to workplace whistle-blowing.

In addition EFF continues to battle for bloggers' rights in the courtroom:

Bloggers can be journalists (and journalists can be bloggers). We're battling for legal and institutional recognition that if you engage in journalism you're a journalist with all of the attendant rights privileges and protections. (See Apple v. Does.)

Bloggers are entitled to free speech. We're working to shield you from frivolous or abusive threats and lawsuits. Internet bullies shouldn't use copyright libel or other claims to chill your legitimate speech. (See OPG v. Diebold.)

Bloggers have the right to political speech.We're working with a number of other public-interest organizations to ensure that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) doesn't gag bloggers' election-related speech. We argue that the FEC should adopt a presumption against the regulation of election-related speech by individuals on the Internet and interpret the existing media exemption to apply to online media outlets that provide news reporting and commentary regarding an election -- including blogs. (See our joint comments to the FEC [PDF 332K].)

Bloggers have the right to stay anonymous. We're continuing our battle to protect and preserve your constitutional right to anonymous speech online including providing a guide to help you with strategies for keeping your identity private when you blog. (See How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else).)

Bloggers have freedom from liability for hosting speech the same way other web hosts do. We're working to strengthen Section 230 liability protections under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) while spreading the word that bloggers are entitled to them. (See Barrett v. Rosenthal.)

In July, EFF called for the immediate release of open source developer and Creative Commons volunteer Bassel Khartabil, who had been detained in Syria since March 12, 2012 as part of a wave of arrests made in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. We felt that the situation was especially...

Press freedom in Sri Lanka has come under further attack over the course of the past month. On June 29, the Criminal Investigation Department’s Colombo Crime Division raided the office shared by news websites Sri Lanka Mirror and Sri Lanka X News. The latter website is widely known...

This weekend, EFF learned that Bassel Khartabil, a longtime member of the open source software community and Creative Commons volunteer, has been detained in Syria since March 12, 2012, as part of a wave of arrests made in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. For months, Bassel’s family has had no...

EFF joined with attorney Venkat Balasubramani of the law firm Focal PLLC to represent The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman in a bizarre lawsuit targeting the online comic strip's fundraising campaign in support of the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation.
Inman started his campaign...